This Week in Weird

Friday

Dec 28, 2007 at 12:01 AMDec 28, 2007 at 5:22 AM

A roundup of some of the more unusual happenings around the country, as reported by GateHouse newspapers.

$4,600 found in shoe box returned
ROCKFORD, Ill. -- Treasures Galore doesn’t use “finders keepers” as a motto in its business model. Not when it comes to money, anyway. Sure, employees of the Rockford thrift shop sometimes find a crumpled-up $1 bill in a pants pocket, maybe a forgotten $5 inside a book. But nothing like this “has ever happened before,” store owner Cindy Collins said. Employees at the shop follow a routine procedure, looking through customers’ goods to gauge their value for resale. So when workers found $4,600 in cash in a box piled with shoes, returning the money was their pleasure.
Owners said a local woman, who had come to the store to sell some of her deceased mother’s old belongings, never knew the money was there. The Register Star agreed to withhold the woman’s name for safety reasons.
She came to the store with three garbage bags full of clothing and other items about two weeks ago, owners say. She also brought in a box full of shoes, said Collins’ daughter, Stephanie Cordonnier, who examined the goods. It was while searching through that box that Cordonnier found a bank book containing 46 $100 bills.
“I just came to a stop,” Cordonnier said. “It was kind of emotional for me because it was the holidays and she just lost her mother.”
`He's urinating all over the place!' Man arrested twice for tinkling in public
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- Police say a Framingham man was arrested twice over the weekend for crimes involving when and where he decided to answer his call to nature.
Mark A. Thompson, 45, was first arrested Friday at 5 p.m., and then Sunday at 2:54 p.m., police spokesman Lt. Paul Shastany said.
The first incident occurred at the MetroWest Medical Center's Framingham Union campus. Police went to the hospital for a report of an out-of-control patient in the emergency room. ``They went in and they could hear a loud, yelling voice, coming from a room,'' said Shastany. ``A nurse quickly exited the room, and she said, `He's urinating all over the place!' The officers entered the room, and there was an angry security guard who complained that Thompson had urinated on him.” Thompson, who was drunk, was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct, Shastany said.
He was released later that night after posting $40 bail, but he had another run-in with police on Sunday. Officer Phil Hurton went to Hollis Street for a report of a man urinating in the street. He recognized Thompson, who has been arrested at least four other times in Framingham this year. ``Two witnesses said Thompson came up behind them on Hollis Street and asked them for cigarettes. They said no,'' said Shastany. ``He then took his pants down and started urinating right in front of them, onlookers and children.''
A murder of crows
HORNELL, N.Y. -- While city police are using scare tactics to shoo crows from roosts in Hornell, someone else may have taken up murder to rid the area of the birds.
Region 8 state Department of Environmental Conservation personnel are investigating what happened to a number of crows found dead at two sites on Upper Glen Avenue. Wildlife Technician Marty DeLong bagged six each at the two locations, checking on a report he received Wednesday afternoon. The bagged birds have been sent to the DEC pathology laboratory in Albany for a determination on the cause of death.
“From what Marty says, it looks like they might have been poisoned or died of natural causes, and they died in the roost area,” said DEC Environmental Conservation Officer Tom Flaitz, adding he was unsure of the exact number found at the sites. “It could have been treated bird seed or fertilizer, the birds might have eaten something that was poisonous.”
If the birds were poisoned, the person who may have done so could be facing punishment by the DEC. While it's legal to hunt crows - though not inside city limits - Flaitz said poisoning is not.
Teens deny breaking in to school van, but – oops! – police see them with the evidence
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- A Framingham teen tried to hide the evidence of breaking in to a van in a school parking lot and vandalizing it, but police said it was too late. The officers had already seen the 16-year-old boy playing with a freshly stolen fire extinguisher, police spokesman Lt. Paul Shastany said.
Officers Jaime Lewis and Paul Patriacca were on routine patrol when they drove through the Juniper Hill School parking lot at 11 p.m. when they saw a car parked with three teens inside it. Next to the car, they saw a fourth teen holding a fire extinguisher that had been discharged onto the ground. ``The teen turned and saw the officers and jumped into the car and it started to drive away,'' Shastany said.
The officers pulled the car over, and when they got to the car, they saw the teen in the back seat trying to shove the fire extinguisher underneath the seat. When questioned, the teens in the car said the fourth boy had taken the fire extinguisher from one of the 15 Accept Transportation vans parked in the Jocyln Avenue school parking lot.
``One of the van's interior lights were on, so the officers looked inside of it and it was white,'' said Shastany. ``The suspect had discharged the extinguisher in the van. The whole interior, from front to back, was white. The powder from the extinguisher was fresh and it looked like smoke.”
Missouri man pulls pocket knife on pit bull at vet office
NEOSHO, Mo. -- An incident last Saturday where a man drew a pocket knife after a pit bull allegedly threatened him at a local veterinary office has resulted in no charges as of yet. The incident occurred about 10:30 a.m. at the Animal Clinic.
According to Neosho Police Chief Dave McCracken, a man and a woman (their names haven’t been released) were standing in line at the clinic with their pets, waiting for a vet. What happened next isn’t exactly clear, McCracken said, as versions of the incident conflict. The man said the woman’s pit bull lunged at him. The woman said it didn’t. Either way, the dog was apparently on a leash. “(But) there’s that fear of pit bulls, you know,” McCracken said.
An argument ensued, wherein the man flashed a standard-sized pocketknife. Whether it was to protect himself from the pit bull or was an act of aggression toward its owner is still being investigated. “The owner of the dog believes they were in danger, or were in fear at least, of the knife,” McCracken said. “So we’re just looking into it more. We’ve got a possibility that charges could follow from this, but at this point there’s none.”
Man locks prostitute in apartment, she stabs him
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- A Framingham man was charged with kidnapping a Dorchester prostitute on Monday when he locked her in his apartment to keep her from leaving, while she is charged with stabbing him to escape, according to police.
Both Oleg Yeliseyev, 69, and Kasandra Combs, 21, were arrested when he chased her from his 1550 Worcester Road apartment onto Rte. 9 after the 8 p.m. incident, police spokesman Lt. Paul Shastany said.
Police received several 911 calls from both the apartment building and people driving on Rte. 9 a little after 8 p.m. When they got there, they found Combs standing behind the guard rail on Rte. 9 west, while Yeliseyev, who had blood on his clothing, standing near his car, which was parked near the woman. ``She was crying and she said she had stabbed the guy (Yeliseyev) with a knife,'' Shastany said.
Combs said she was a prostitute and had been picked up by Yeliseyev three times in the past. He picked her up Monday and brought her to his apartment in Framingham, where they had sex. At one point, she used his phone to call her 2-year-old daughter. When she hung up, Combs said Yeliseyev became angry. ``He accused her of calling some male friends to come and rob him,'' said Shastany. ``She became frightened and tried to leave, but he wouldn't let her.''
The two fought in front of his apartment door, with Yeliseyev refusing to leave. Combs told police she had a knife and she took it out of her purse and stabbed him in the arm and ran out, with him in pursuit.
GateHouse News Service